The present invention relates to a domestic electric device for cooking food, in particular foodstuffs which are sliced or cut in pieces. More particularly the invention relates to a domestic electric device wherein the cooking of foodstuffs is effected by means of the heat generated by suitable heating means, properly located inside the container.
Various types of domestic electric devices of the above mentioned kind are known. These are essentially containers, inside which a cooking chamber is defined for housing the food to be cooked, and provided with suitable heat sources (generally speaking, electric resistors) suitably housed near the side surfaces of the container itself, all around the cooking chamber.
In such devices, the cooking takes place typically in two ways: by heating (by irradiation and/or natural and/or forced convection of the heat generated by the heat sources), and then maintaining the cooking chamber at high temperature; accordingly the chamber has to be suitably insulated from the outside (as for example in the electrical ovens), or by heating at high temperature a bath of a cooking fluid (typically water or oil) wherein the foodstuffs to be cooked are dipped (as for example in the boiler and/or fryers appliances).
Differently from these last appliances, wherein the cooking cannot occur without the provision of a cooking fluid, in the ovens the cooking may be of the so-called "dry" type, as no cooking fluid needs to be used; in this instance, exclusively the water and fat content inside the foodstuffs to be cooked is exploited.
Above all with respect to frying, the "dry" cooking has remarkable advantages.
A first advantage is of economic nature and is related to the fact that no cooking fluid is needed, that after a certain number of cooking cycles has to be replenished.
A second advantage is related to the fact that the "dry" cooked foodstuffs are not drenched with the cooking oil and are more digestible and not injurious to the consumer health; in fact oil, after a certain number of cooking cycles, tends to degrade thus causing the formation of harmful compounds and a deterioration of the organoleptic characteristics of the cooked foodstuffs.
Furthermore, because an oil bath to be heated is not provided, the dry cooking of food occurs more quickly than by frying.
Nevertheless, foodstuffs cooked by frying taste better and have a nicer aspect (due to the particular gilding of the external surface), features that are often desired and not equally obtainable by means of different cooking processes.
The technical problem at the basis of the present invention is that of providing a simple to manufacture and economic device able to carry out the dry cooking of foodstuffs of different kind, providing these with taste and aesthetical properties similar to those obtainable by frying.